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Licarrit"s Primal Journal

07-15-2009, 05:13 PM

I have been eating primal for about 2 months now so I am over the weepy, tissue-papery feeling of not having that blast of carbs everytime you get hungry. I am diabetic, type II but I may have converted or become so screwed up that I can only use insulin now. I take 46 units of long acting and 1 unit for every 3 grams of carbs of the short acting -that is a lot of insulin, trust me. At present I eat about 40-80 grams of carb a day. I need to do more exercise but I am starting to get a grip on that too. This is where I am going to journal my food and exercise so comments are thoroughly encouraged. My immediate goal is to take off some weight, I am 5&#39;1" and weight in at a whooping 205.2. I am also a 45 yr old woman so I am not expecting anything rapid here. Beyond the weight loss I am also looking to decrease the amount of insulin I use daily.

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Actually, I haven&#39;t lost anything though this is in no way a reflection on Mark&#39;s ideas or PB. I am taking so much insulin and had complicating factors that further reduced my insulin sensitivity that it would be nearly impossible for me to lose from the start.

In the time that I have been eating PB I have seen my fasting sugars go from the mid 180&#39;s to 100, for the non-diabetic, that is the difference between eventually needing dialysis or going blind and living to a ripe old age, 100 is normal. I had gotten it down to @ 140 with just the change in diet. Getting off my birth control pills and getting off my diuretic for high BP along with taking Mark&#39;s vitamins pushed it even lower. I don&#39;t work for Mark BTW, so that is my unpaid opinion. I need to keep it down long enough that my A1c starts to drop. That test is done every 3 months.

As for exercise, I tend to have exercise ADD. I have a home gym with a Bulgarian bag and some other stuff as well as an Incline trainer.

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Ahh, you&#39;ve found the chink in the plan! I work @ 60 hours a week in a brain draining job (academic medical research)(my husband has worked at least 6 days a week for the last 15 years!) and between that and having a demanding 9 yr old daughter I don&#39;t have the energy and brain capacity to actually DO anything. I am trying to limit my computer time while at home and find ways to have FUN (ah, fun, remember fun). So to that end I ordered a Trikke today that I can drag my daughter along on her rollerblades. I am doing weight training a couple of days a week with a TRX, the Bulgarian Bag, and bodyweight exercises. I was doing better with the exercise before starting PB and the energy hasn&#39;t been there since starting but I am still working on it. My hope is to lose enough weight that I can get back to doing the martial arts that I love.

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Didn&#39;t have the goat cheese and tomatoes just had the eggs scrambled in butter.

Arthur, since you are determined to keep me on the straight and narrow (and thank you for that!) I will tell you that since eating PB I have taken 2" off my hips

1" off my waist and 1" off my chest measurements which is probably the other reason that I am not nuts that the scale isn&#39;t moving. Also, and this falls into the realm of way to much info, the fat I carry on my stomach is softer and my stretch marks are much more pronounced which means that the fat is leaving (squishy fat is mobile fat!) and there is less of it (less tension on the skin means more pronounced stretch marks -gross but true!)

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You guys are working way too much. Why are you working sooooo many hours? Is if a money issue, love for the job, etc? When do you have time to raise your daughter? Enjoy life, etc?

Also, it’s just a matter of getting dressed and doing it. IF it is important, you can find 20-30 min a day to workout. I worked 10 hours with no break yesterday… (which is rare) but went home and put on my shorts and headed out… I didn’t feel like it but fitness is important to me.

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Unfortunately, those kinds of hours are actually pretty standard in academic medical research which is what my husband and I do. My primarily blue collar family thinks it is hysterical -3 degrees (DH is an M.D Ph.D.) and we work more than they do. Weren&#39;t you supposed to go to college to get the cushy jobs!? Anyway, you are right about the exercise and that was what pushed me to get out of bed a little earlier and get some in.

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Unfortunately, if you want to stay employed in doing neuro-immunology research, yes it is necessary. We have published papers in really good science journals (you can google me, Lisette Carrithers) The stuff we do is fascinating even if this isn&#39;t what I want to do for the rest of my life. In truth, I&#39;m more of an artist than a scientist. I am salary so is DH, we make the same $ if we work 40 or 80 hours. The thing is that if we want to stay funded and we want to get promoted, and write the papers and you get the idea, you do this. We took a 10 day vacation this year which was a very big deal because usually we have cells and mice that need to be taken care on a near daily basis. The money we make which is pretty good, goes to really good food, good books, good wine and the occasional splurge toy like the Trikke I just ordered. All in all we have a great life and because the job is not physically demanding we can work into our 70&#39;s without breaking down our bodies. Something that the rest of my family runs into.

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okay, still trying to get the hang of journaling without an edit feature.

Yesterday I ate pretty much as planned, had eggs but not the goat cheese and tomatoes, ate my salad like always and had wood roasted pork shoulder aka. bar-b-que without the sauce, well just a dab of sauce and peach with greek yogurt for dessert, oh, and some nuts.

We even took the dogs out for @ an hour walk after dinner.

Fasting sugar this morning was 139. not great but not bad. I took 23 units of long acting last night and not the usual 25 guess I don&#39;t get to reduce that one yet. I have reduced the short acting by going from 1 unit for every 3 grams of carb to 1 unit for every 4. doesn&#39;t seem like much but every little bit helps. Got to get it down further but I didn&#39;t sleep well sore and ache-y from the lifting yesterday morning. which obviously means I need to do more!

Mark is going to be doing his 30 day challenge in the beginning of Aug. and I am definitely in but I think I want to try for a noticeable transformation so I am going to set up some pictures of the oh so scary before and try to do some video and stuff on a regular blog and try to put the link here. At the beginning of the summer my goal was to lose 15 lbs of body fat and frankly I am not even close though I have lost some. So my goals for the rest of the summer are to find more ways to move my body, the eating has been solid, no real cravings for carbs that I felt powerless about. The movement comes harder. So we can walk the long way to the bar where I have my big salad. We can walk after dinner, and I can lift in the mornings. I don&#39;t feel safe sprinting yet but I can add in a HIIT incline workout once in a while and then maybe by this fall I can have taken off some weight and my ankles and knees will feel up to sprinting. I also want to add some fun in so the Trikke will be here next week and I&#39;ll get to make a fool of myself trying to learn that too but hopefully it will help move some of this trunk fat. Ew, that sounds gross!

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the How To&#39;s are written by a GP with a Type 1 son, who is very opposed to conventional treatment. She covers reduing insulin along with the carbs.

According to Michael Eades a normal pancreatic output is around 30 units/day, a figure confirmed by a Type 1 friend who maintains an A1c in the high fours on about twenty units, using a low carb diet.

This suggests you have considerable insulin resistance (your lipids may prove this). The good news is, so did I on a high carb low fat diet, and now I don&#39;t.

Probably a combination of low intensity exercise and short bursts of high intensity is the best plan, IR responds well to growing and using muscle. Lifting grows it and even walking is sufficient to use it. Metformin also helps (not totally Primal but it is derived from a herb). Getting and keeping your BG down, as you&#39;re already doing by no longer abusing your body with all those carbs, also works well, and that and the weight loss (which work synergistically) will undoubtedly have results, but not overnight.

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Sorry, kinda dropped out of sight but I am back now! Trinkwasser, that site looks awesome! I&#39;ll have to check it out further at home.

I am setting some goals for myself for the challenge>

TRX 3x a week to build muscle.

Trikke 4x a week to have fun and work my body at a steady pace.

Get the carbs down to 70 or less grams a day.

Write it all down so I can see what the hell I am doing.

I want to try to get rid of some of the dairy, namely cheese, in my diet so that it is the occasion treat and not the crutch it is now.

I&#39;ve still been eating well and my fuzziness is cleared up now I have started getting my energy back too! Thank god! There have been lots of little positive things about the switch that I&#39;ve seen but the big thing I&#39;d like to see is some weightloss and that just hasn&#39;t happened yet. I am confident it will but damn, it is taking a long time.